That's curious, they leave out several polls that show up at pollster.com like Research 2000 and ARG.
Ah, looks like they are excluding polls deemed partisan-affliated. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/use_of_partisan_affiliated_pol.html Still, the difference is minimal. Real Clear has an average of Obama +5.3 versus +5.9 in Pollster. Regardless, I think that when you are this close to the election, the national polls are really only useful for easy headlines. Determining a candidates win possibility means getting down into the electoral college and seeing which states still have room to move to one candidate or another. If you take a look at Pollster's current national map: http://pollster.com/polls/2008president/ You'll see that Obama has 247 EV's in the "pretty darn safe" category, i.e., leading by more than 10 points (I believe) versus McCain having 137 in that category. That leaves Obama only having to pull down 23 electoral votes in the states where he is leading (currently totally 66 ev's) or within striking distance (20 more ev's). McCain is going to have to take his 137 and come up with another 133, which would not only be the 20 that are currently leaning to him and the 66 within single digits where Obama leads, but then still pull down 37 from states where Obama has a 10+ point lead currently. Not undoable of course. But that looks harder than trailing 5 points nationally would seem. Judah On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 12:19 PM, Robert Munn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Maybe coincidence, I don't know, but the polls seem to be coming into > alignment for a 4-6 point Obama lead: > > http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html > > Meanwhile, the undecided voter is still big enough to swing the election > either way. I give Obama an 80% chance at this point. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:275645 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
